What do they mean ‘social distancing in some form until the end of the year’?

[BuffaloCauliflower]

Just that really? What sort of level are they actually talking about? Surely the country will crumble, hospitality industry for one won’t survive if people can’t go out normally all summer and then Christmas time as well? The fallout will be far greater than the virus and the country will be bankrupt.

Anyone more knowledgeable than me able to contribute?

lljkk - I’d be very surprised if a Tory government isn’t paying attention to economists... Seems to me there is no consensus of opinion amongst economists on this, any more than there is a consensus of opinion amongst any other experts. And it’s not all about overall number of deaths, anyway (people will keep dying until an effective treatment or cure is found), it’s about the implications of the effects of something that is uncontrolled, poorly understood, and has the capacity to overwhelm modern healthcare systems entirely. If healthcare services can cope, then deaths will be tolerated. If they can’t and are completely overwhelmed, that will have all sorts of dire effects that nobody who wants to end lockdown has discussed in any great depth or with any great honesty, which doesn’t incline me to favour their arguments at this moment in time!

I would rather be poor and have my loved ones that be without them

Do you have any idea of the horrors of true poverty? I don't mean having to use a food bank. My parents are from another country. My grandmother's three year old twins died in the early sixties from chronic malnutrition. She literally could not afford to feed her children.

And this is not an isolated country issue, this is a global pandemic - how other countries react to this country’s reaction also affects our economic future. So we are kind of stuck with behaving in a way the rest of the world that we want to trade with will approve of.